Nokia 3310 is not a bad phone and it will remind many people of the bygone feature phone era

Nokia is back once again, ready to woo us with its candy-bar design in colourful options, and a battery that lasts longer than the average smartphone. Nostalgia aside, how easy is it to go back to a feature phone? I tried and here’s what I learnt. For those who don’t know, Nokia 3310 is priced at Rs 3,310 in India, but finding it in offline stores is a task. There’s no doubt, Nokia 3310 plays the nostalgia card very well. But how practical is the phone? Well, I took the plunge and put my primary SIM inside this device. Thus Nokia 3310 was my primary device for a grand total of two days, and here’s why I couldn’t extend this usage. Nokia 3310 is not a bad phone, and in fact it will remind many people of the old feature phone era, where one could be rough with their device without worrying about the display cracking at the slightest drop. One needs that extra push when pulling out the battery. In fact, I was being too gentle when taking out the battery. This is a phone that demands no fear, unlike smartphones where one is constantly worried about cracks or scratches. A user will need micro-SIMs for this, and this is a dual-SIM device. One is a hybrid slot for a microSD card + microSIM. The Nokia 3310 has a numeric keypad, and one has to go back to the good old days, where typing a text message was quite an art. And, yes, it took time. Of course, muscle memory meant that I kept touching the screen, in the hope of getting a response, even though I knew perfectly well this wasn’t a touchscreen phone. Honestly, the first few hours with Nokia 3310 were blissful. I was free of WhatsApp, emails, Facebook Messenger. All those dreaded pings, alerts telling me I had missed this or that were no longer there.

The options to entertain yourself with the Nokia 3310 are limited. There’s Snake and a demo version of Asphalt 6, and figuring out the controls is not so tough. But after a point, I gave up. Also, most of us have moved on to games like Asphalt 8, Candy Crush, or whatever else. Snake won’t be enough to keep anyone glued to this phone.Figuring out how to reply to a text message that one has already read can be a task. I’ve done it before, but it takes a minute or two before your mind can register the familiar path to typing on a numeric keypad. Saving numbers on Nokia 3310 is also an exercise. Two pictures, and two contact saved, plus a couple of text messages later, the phone has run out of space. After all, it comes with only 16MB storage. For the rest, get ready to use the microSD slot. One also has to quickly navigate to the settings to turn off those annoying keypad tones. It has a 2MP camera, but let’s face it, most of us want more, and that selfie camera is missing here. In summary, if you’re sick of the smartphone world, and need a feature phone just to make calls, then get the Nokia 3310.